Chasing Love
by Padfoot's Blondie
Summary: It's been four years since James Potter first started crushing on Lily Evans, and he is determined to make this the year he finally steals her heart. Luckily he has Remus and Sirius to give him advice on how to win her over. JPLE, RLSB


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

The second James felt his foot catch around the chair leg, he knew he was going down.

Literally.

In the split second before he fell flat on his face, James learned that it was rather detrimental to his health to stare at Lily Evans instead of watching where he was going.

As James waited patiently for his face to connect with the floor, he resignedly heard the laughter of Sirius, as well as pretty much everyone else in the room except for Remus, who was probably just rolling his eyes.

_Thud._ Hitting the floor, James mused, was something one could never really get used to. Especially when it was your perfect cheekbone the floor was mercilessly crushing.

James just lay there, shooting daggers with his eyes at the floor centimeters away, blaming it for all his problems. The he turned and glared at the chair leg, which he also blamed.

"Up you get, Prongs!" Sirius shouted joyfully. "That's what you get when you're obsessively gawking at the lovely Miss Evans."

James glared at Sirius. "Shut up, you prat. At least help me up," He said, putting up his hand. Seeing as Sirius was laughing too hard to help him, Remus grabbed James's hand and hauled him up.

As soon as he was up, James rapidly scanned the room for Lily, who was suspiciously nowhere to be found. "Where's Lily?" He asked frantically. "Did she see me trip?" He said, quickly running his hand through his unruly hair.

"'Fraid so, Prongs," Remus said, clapping James on the back. "I wouldn't worry too much though. I mean, you'll probably manage to embarrass yourself in front of her again at some point today so she'll probably forget all about this."

James groaned. "I hate my life."

" We'll be laughing at you the whole way," Sirius snorted. James rolled his eyes.

The four of them made their way down to the great bog oak tree by the lake, chatting about the normal stuff: pranks, girls, food, quidditch.

After a while, there was a comfortable lull in conversation, all of the boys just relaxing in the early spring weather. James was sitting with his back against the giant tree trunk, idly catching the snitch over and over. Remus was lying down with his head in Sirius's lap, and Peter was watching James catch the snitch.

"Do you think Lily will ever go out with me?" James said abruptly. Sirius, Remus, and Peter all stared at him.

"Probably not," Sirius laughed. Remus hit him lightly, then looked back at James. 

"What Sirius means is that, probably not if you keep acting the way you're acting," Remus explained.

"How am I acting? I'm being myself 100%!" James protested. Remus rolled his eyes.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. I mean, like terrorizing Snape and basically being an arrogant arsehole."

James gasped dramatically. "I'm not an arrogant arsehole though!" He thought for a second. "Right?" He asked uncertainly.

When no one answered, Peter stepped in. "Not really, Prongs."

This broke the ice. "Of course you are, Jamsie boy!" Sirius said. "But don't worry. I wouldn't have you any other way," He said playfully, making doe eyes at James.

"Hey!" Remus snapped at Sirius, who grinned down guiltily at him. "That's not what you should focus on though, Prongs. You should focus on how to _not_ be an arrogant arsehole, not the fact that you are one."

"How do I do that?" James asked, somewhat nervously. What if he couldn't be anything_ but _arrogant arsehole? That's all he'd ever been, apparently.

"Don't worry about it. When you're being a little too much of a jackass, I'll let you know so you can tone it down a little."

James grinned. "Cheers, Moony!"

Sirius groaned and ran his fingers through Remus's hair. "Do you have to help him, Moons? I love watching him embarrass himself and make a complete of mess of every situation he gets into!"

Remus smiled fondly at Sirius. "It's only fair that I help him. He helped us get together, after all."

Sirius scoffed derisively. "Sure, if you can call telling us to 'just get over ourselves and snog each other already' help."

Remus sighed. "Yes, well the thought was there. Probably. But the main reason is I'm just getting tired of him doing all this stupid stuff. I mean, he's starting to make me embarrassed just by association!"

James glared at him. "Hey! I'm right here! And I don't embarrass myself _that _often."

Sirius lifted his eyebrows. "Really, Prongs? When was the last time you were in the same room as Evans and didn't make a complete fool out of yourself? Second year, maybe?"

Remus nodded pensively. "Yeah, I think his episodes started in second year."

James remembered, too. Thinking back to second year, he cringed…

_The first Herbology lesson of the new school year had just started, and already they were beginning activities. _

"_Alright, everyone get a Spewing Lotus! Remember, do not point it directly at your face," The professor called out to all the eager second years. _

_James, who had noticed how pretty Lily Evans, another Gryffindor girl, had gotten, hurried over to the pile of the Spewing Lotuses. He picked up two. _

"_Hey, Evans!" He yelled. The girl in question looked over at him confusedly. James proudly held out a lotus. _

"_Got you a flower," He said, smirking in what he clearly thought was an irresistible way. Lily rolled her eyes, but reached out to take the flower. _

_But James had unknowingly turned the flower opposite to himself, so it was facing Lily directly. _

_Of course, the lotus had to choose that moment to spray yellow, foul-smelling pus all over Lily's beautiful face. _

_James saw his future with this girl flash before his eyes, gone before he could even consider it being a possibility._

_James felt his heart sink as he heard Llily shriek, "POTTER!"…_

Nothing had changed since then.

Apparently Remus, Sirius, and Peter were all thinking of the lotus incident in second year that started all this, because they all cringed and shook their heads.

"Man, that was a bad Herbology class," Sirius muttered.

"Let's not dwell on the past though," Remus said sensibly. "No use in thinking about something that'll probably happen again," He added, hazel eyes sparkling mischievously.

James sighed. "I'd normally respond to that with an appropriately scathing remark, but right now I just can't be arsed to care."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "James Potter, not retaliating? What has the world come to?"

"Lily Evans," Remus replied.

"Where?" James asked, twisting his neck around to try to get a glimpse of Lily.

Everyone rolled their eyes. "Nowhere, James. Just mentioning her name," Remus said slowly and quietly, as though he thought James was a bit touched in the head.

"That was a bit of a facepalm moment," Sirius remarked lightly.

James facepalmed.

"Good man," Sirius congratulated him.

"Now that we've got James sufficiently freaked out," Remus began.

"-I'm not freaked out in the slightest, why would you say that?" James interrupted.

"WE SHOULD THINK OF SOME WAYS TO HELP HIM GET WITH LILY," Remus finished loudly, talking over James.

"First things first- stop being so damned clumsy," Sirius started emphatically. "She's going to think you're mental. Well, more than she already does," He added as an afterthought.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Please, Pads. Prongs has been being clumsy around Lily for the last four years. I think we're past the point of trying to save that one."

"So what should we do?"

"I think I can try to be less clumsy around Lily," James said carefully.

"You should try to do that anyway because frankly you're just a walking tornado most of the time," Remus said unashamedly.

James gaped indignantly at Remus. "I think you mean I'm a fiasco of tornadoing awesomeness," He countered.

"While I admire your astonishing ability to spin words, that's not quite how I'd put it. Now, okay, so first things first- stop being clumsy. What should the second step be?" Remus asked Sirius, playing with a strand of Sirius's long black hair.

"Maybe he should lay off the crack for a little while," Sirius said. James punched his shoulder a little harder than normal.

"I am not on crack! That was you, Padfoot."

Sirius stared into the distance. "….oh, yeah."

"_Anyway, _I think the next step should be trying to have a civil conversation with Lily in which you don't dump something on her, trip her, somehow cover her in feathers, break any of her bones, or insult Snivellus."

James gawked at Remus when he heard this, and then shook his head very rapidly. "Nope. Can't be done. Lily needs to know how rotten Snape is. It's my job to tell her."

"Mate, you're making a big mistake insulting her friends, no matter how greasy they may be," Sirius put in. "Even I know that, and I'm clueless when it comes to human interaction."

"Too bloody right," Remus muttered under his breath, and then smiled innocently at Sirius when he stared at Remus questioningly.

"Actually," Remus started, "There's Lily now." 

All three of them twisted their heads around to look at Lily; James's head whipping around so fast he suspected he snapped his neck.

"There she is," James whispered reverently.

"He is just _whipped_," Sirius breathed to Remus, who smiled back.

"_I know,_" Remus mouthed back. "James," He said out loud. James tore his eyes reluctantly from Lily and glanced back at Remus with glazed eyes.

"What is it, Moony?" He asked absently.

Remus rolled his eyes. "You're drooling."

James turned red and quickly wiped the drool off his face. "I'm gonna go talk to her right now. Thanks for the advice guys!" He stood up in a haze and drifted over to Lily.

"Wait, James!" Remus called. James didn't look back or slow down in the least. Remus sighed and glanced up at Sirius.

"He still has drool on his chin. And his robes. And we barely gave him any advice."

Sirius nodded. "This isn't going to end well."

They turned to watch James approaching Lily.

James had no idea what he was going to say when he finally reached Lily. All he knew was that he needed to talk to this girl.

Some would call it love. Some would call it obsession. James preferred the term 'all his hopes and dreams'.

James had reached Lily. She was sitting underneath a small maple tree in the middle of the courtyard, going over some notes. James approached her in a daze and sat down next to her, not really thinking clearly.

"Hello, Evans," he said. He felt light-headed being this close to the girl he had pined over for four years. She never failed to have this effect on him.

Lily looked over at him, confusion written in her features. Confusion soon turned into disgust. "Potter, you're drooling."

"No, I'm not!" James protested. "I wiped all the drool off! I mean…" He trailed off weakly at Lily's incredulous look.

He fell silent. Neither of them said anything for the nest few moments. Finally, Lily turned to James. "Potter, did you need something? I'm trying to get work done, in case that didn't get through your abnormally thick skull."

James gulped, laughed unnecessarily loudly, and composed himself all in the span of about ten seconds. Lily did not look impressed. James choked a bit on air.

"Well, actually, erm, I was just um, admiring, your um, erm, hair. Um, hair color. It's very, um, eh, erm, indecisive?"

Lily stared at him, as though she didn't know what to make of the whole situation. "You came all the way over here and made a fool of yourself just to tell me you thought my hair color is indecisive?"

James gulped again, sensing he had done something wrong. "Well, yes, because you see sometimes it's dark red, but other times it looks slightly brownish and once I swear it was blonde-"

Lily stood up, cutting him off in his rambling. "Well, Potter, it's been… interesting. But I really must be going." With that, she left. James slumped to the ground, groaning out loud.

Soon, Remus, Sirius and Peter joined him.

"From what just happened, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that that's not how you expected that little conversation to go," Sirius said, grinning wickedly.

"You were right. I'm hopeless." James groaned again. Remus tugged his arm down from where it was covering his face. "Relax, Jim. We'll give you more advice next time."

James suddenly sat up and glared at Remus and Sirius. "Wait, why should I take advice from you two? You're gay! You only know how to land guys!"

Sirius chuckled. "Well, trying to get Moony was a bit like flirting with a girl. No offence, love," He added to Remus.

Remus smiled at Sirius sweetly. "None taken, Padfoot. Although you might want to shut the hell up before I break up with you."

Sirius shut up.

"Anyway," Remus continued, "don't worry about next time, Prongs. We'll help you more."

James gave Remus and Sirius another dirty look. "You'd better," He said heavily. "I think I almost blew it that time."

Remus and Sirius burst out laughing. "I think you blew it the first time you ever spoke to her, Prongs," Sirius snickered.

"But don't worry about it James," Remus said. "We'll get you a date with Lily if it's the last thing we ever do. And that's a promise."

**And there's the first chapter! Should I continue it? Send me a review telling me what you think!**


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